It would be difficult to find someone who would classify cricket as an extreme sport, but an adventurous group of cricketers are taking the game to extremes with an attempt to play a match in the shadows of Mount Everest.

An England-based group will head to Everest base camp in April to play what they hope will be recorded as the highest-ever official sports match, raising money for charity along the way.

The idea came to Richard Kirtley-Wright two years ago when he was trekking towards Everest and noticed a group of hikers having a hit of cricket on a plateau known as Gorak Shep, around a kilometre from base camp.

It was not lost on him that the plateau - 5,160 metres above sea level - was almost the same size as the spiritual home of cricket, Lord's.

That casual game with plastic bat and ball inspired him to launch the audacious record attempt, which is aiming to raise $550,000 for British children's charity Lord's Taverners and the Himalayan Trust.

Lord's Taverners raises money for disadvantaged children in the United Kingdom and the Himalayan Trust was set up in 1960 by Sir Edmund Hillary to address poverty and sickness and preserve the environment of the Himalayas.

Two teams will take the field for a 20-over match; one team named after Sir Edmund and the other named after his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay from their history-making 1953 expedition to the summit of Mount Everest.

They will not have to last an entire day's play at 5,100 metres - the advent of Twenty20 cricket has helped them out there - but they will still have to deal with air containing just 65 per cent of the oxygen they are used to.

They will also have to brave nights when the temperature could easily plunge to 15 degrees Celsius below freezing.

'Tough trek'

Australian Nick Toovey from the New South Wales central coast will be the only Australian donning the whites during the record attempt, and he is looking forward to a gruelling but rewarding trip.

The 50-strong group will take 11 days to hike to base camp, acclimatising to the potentially dangerous altitude as they go.

"We're taking it as slowly as we can to account for the varying degrees of fitness levels of guys that will be going up," said the 27-year-old, who has been working in London for six years.

"It's a fairly tough trek, we'll continue to go up in altitude from about 1,000 metres to 5,000 metres above sea level in the space of 10 days."

To account for the challenging conditions and potential drop-outs, 30 players are trekking up with only 11 to take the field for each side. Mr Toovey acknowledges there will be "some fraught selection issues" if more than 22 players arrive at the field fully fit.

In order to qualify as an official record the match will be played under the supervision of two qualified umpires, with proper equipment and an official scorer. A Guinness representative will accompany the cricketers to make sure the match meets all requirements of a record.

Not much has been left to chance in the record attempt, with the organisers even planning to haul up their own pitch, eliminating the need to take a groundsman.

"We definitely won't be taking the guy from the SCG after what happened in the last Test," Mr Toovey said.

"We're taking a pitch up that's almost like a jigsaw, although when I say we I mean a Sherpa will be taking it because it's quite heavy."

And what of the age-old cricketer's curse?

The expedition will be leaving during a six-week window that generally provides the best weather for summit attempts, but organisers have "set aside two days for the game as a precaution in case that old chestnut rain stops play," Mr Toovey said.

When asked what role he would be playing on the field, Mr Toovey was realistic.

"Due to my complete lack of batting ability I might call myself a bowler," he said.

"But I doubt anyone will be bowling anything more than spin up there as the oxygen is down to 54 per cent of normal so I think it might be one step and roll the arm over."